Earlier this month, the United States Coast Guard upheld its self-declared status as a ‘special’ branch of the military with the ability to prosecute civilians in military tribunals. This startling declaration, unreported in the media, came in a Decision on Appeal related to the case of Lieutenant Eric Shine, a commissioned Naval officer in the Merchant Marines and a graduate of Kings Point Military Service Academy, and was penned by the Vice Commandant of the Coast Guard.

Executive Order 13544, Establishing the National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council is a short document outlining the goals and scope of the order. The title gives the appearance that it only creates a Council, but buried within are detailed plans to carry out the “goals” of the Executive Order. Let’s take a closer look at the order.

The US Department of Homeland Security has been spying on people who don’t like gas drilling and handing on the data to the oil companies.

The air marshals, whose identities are being concealed, told 7NEWS that they’re required to submit at least one report a month. If they don’t, there’s no raise, no bonus, no awards and no special assignments.

Is someone out behind your house digging through your trash? Don’t worry, it is probably just the government. When Audi ran their now famous “Green Police” commercial during the Super Bowl last year, most Americans laughed it off and thought that nothing like that could ever happen in America…In 2009, the city of Cleveland has issued 2,900 tickets for trash violations, which was almost five times more tickets than in 2008. In 2010, the city of Cleveland is on track to issue over 4,000 tickets for trash violations.

It has also ruled that innocent civilians tortured and detained, even after release, have no rights for recourse against the CIA or corporations involved because litigation would jeopardize state secrets and top secret classified information critical to National Security.

President Obama’s new Executive Order on “Controlled Unclassified Information” {four page pdf} issued today builds on recommendations from open government groups and the findings of the National Security Archive’s 2006 audit of “Pseudo-Secrets” that uncovered 28 different and uncoordinated policies on marking and restricting official unclassified information.

“During War there are no civilians,” that’s what “Yossi,” an Israeli military (IDF) training unit leader simply stated during a round of questioning on day two of the Rachel Corrie trials, held in Haifa’s District Court earlier this week. “When you write a [protocol] manual, that manual is for war,” he added.

For the human rights activists and friends and family of Rachel Corrie sitting in the courtroom, this open admission of an Israeli policy of indiscrimination towards civilians — Palestinian or foreign — created an audible gasp.

Israel could attack Iran within a year, even without a green light from Washington to do so, if it believes this is the only way to stop Tehran’s nuclear drive, the Atlantic magazine said in a story in its September 2010 issue.

The author of the article, Jeffrey Goldberg, writes that ‘a consensus emerged that there is a better than 50 per cent chance that Israel will launch a strike by next July.’

One document in particular, Plan Dalet, demonstrated the army’s intention to expel the Palestinians from their homeland. Its existence explains the ethnic cleansing of more than 80 per cent of Palestinians in the war, followed by a military campaign to destroy hundreds of villages to ensure the refugees never returned.

Ethnic cleansing is the common theme of both these Israeli conquests. A deeper probe of the archives will almost certainly reveal in greater detail how and why these “cleansing” campaigns were carried out — which is precisely why Mr Netanyahu and others want the archives to remain locked. But full disclosure of these myth-shattering documents may be the precondition for peace. Certainly, more of these revelations offer the best hope of shocking Israeli public opinion out of its self-righteous opposition to meaningful concessions, either to Syria or the Palestinians.

Most of the people living in Gaza are not there by choice. The majority of the 1.5 million people crammed into the roughly 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip belong to families that came from towns and villages outside Gaza like Ashkelon and Beersheba. They were driven to Gaza by the Israeli Army in 1948.

While most Israeli leaders are resistant to fully lifting the blockade of Gaza, Avigdor Lieberman, the right-wing foreign minister, is advocating that Israel abandon the Strip to international monitoring and economic rehabilitation. The proposal, recently leaked to the Israeli press, does not amount to freeing Gaza but rather to placing it under European sea and land inspections and a reconstruction plan.

What is apartheid? As defined by the 1973 United Nations convention, apartheid is a policy of racial or ethnic segregation founded on a set of discriminatory practices that favor a specific group in order to ensure its racial supremacy over another group (“International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the crime of Apartheid,” 30 November 1973).

UPDATES FROM THE MAY 31 FLOTILLA RAID

Free Gaza has been the only organization to send nine voyages to Gaza, successfully entering the port five times in 2008. The 6-boat flotilla was violently stopped May 31, 2010 as we and our coalition partners were trying again to break Israel’s illegal siege. That action by Israel has caused several countries to step up and start collecting money to send boats…the UK, the US, Belgium, Spain, Switzerland, Italy, Holland, Norway, Ireland…are all planning on sending boats in the spring of 2011.

Attached below is a three-page summary of the UN Human Rights Council Fact-Finding Mission. Read it and pass it around. It is a vitally important document for us all. Thank you for your support and your donations.

Furkan Dogan, a nineteen-year old with dual Turkish and United States citizenship, was on the central area of the top deck filming with a small video camera when he was first hit with live fire. It appears that he was lying on the deck in a conscious, or semi-conscious, state for some time. In total Furkan received five bullet wounds, to the face, head, back thorax, left leg and foot. All of the entry wounds were on the back of his body, except for the face wound which entered to the right of his nose. According to forensic analysis, tattooing around the wound in his face indicates that the shot was delivered at point blank range. Furthermore, the trajectory of the wound, from bottom to top, together with a vital abrasion to the left shoulder that could be consistent with the bullet exit point, is compatible with the shot being received while he was lying on the ground on his back. The other wounds were not the result of firing in contact, near contact or close range, but it is not otherwise possible to determine the exact firing range. The wounds to the leg and foot were
most likely received in a standing position.

Ibrahim Bilgen, a 60 year old Turkish citizen, from Siirt in Turkey, was on the top deck and was one of the first passengers to be shot. He received a bullet wound to the chest, the trajectory of which was from above and not at close range. He had a further two bullet wounds to the right side of the back and right buttock, both back to front. These wounds would not have caused instant death, but he would have bled to death within a short time without medical attention. Forensic evidence shows that he was shot in the side of the head with a soft baton round at such close proximity and that an entire bean bag and its wadding penetrated the skull and lodged in the brain. He had a further bruise on the right flank consistent with another beanbag wound. The wounds are consistent with the deceased initially being shot from soldiers on board the helicopter above and receiving a further wound to the head while lying on the ground, already wounded.

Fahri Yaldiz, a 42 year old Turkish citizen from Adiyaman, received five bullet wounds, one to the chest, one to the left leg and three to the right leg. The chest wound was caused by a bullet that entered near the left nipple and hit the heart and lungs before exiting from the shoulder. This injury would have caused rapid death.

According to the pathology report, Ali Heyder Bengi, a 38 year old Turkish citizen from Diyarbakir, received six bullet wounds (one in the chest, one in the abdomen, one in the right arm, one in the right thigh and two in the left hand). One bullet lodged in the chest area. None of the wounds would have been instantly fatal, but damage to the liver caused bleeding which would have been fatal if not stemmed. There are several witness accounts which suggest that Israeli soldiers shot the deceased in the back and chest at close range while he was lying on the deck as a consequence of initial bullet wounds.

Cevdet Kiliçlar, a 38 year old Turkish citizen from Istanbul, was on the Mavi Marmara, in his capacity as a photographer employed by IHH. At the moment he was shot he was standing on the bridge deck on the port side of the ship near to the door leading to the main stairwell and was attempting to photograph Israeli soldiers on the top deck. According to the pathology reports, he received a single bullet to his forehead between the eyes. The bullet followed a horizontal trajectory which crossed the middle of the brain from front to back. He would have died instantly.

41 year old Cengiz Akyüz from Hatay and 46 year old Cengiz Songür from Izmir, both Turkish citizens, were injured on the bridge deck in close succession by live fire from above. They had been sheltering and were shot as they attempted to move inside the door leading to the stairwell. Cengiz Akyüz received a shot to the head and it is probable that he died instantly.

The pathology report shows four wounds: to the neck, face, chest and thigh. Cengiz Songür received a single bullet to the upper central thorax below the neck, shot from a high angle, which lodged in the right thoracic cavity injuring the heart and aorta. Unsuccessful efforts were made by doctors inside the ship to resuscitate him through heart massage.

Çetin Topçuoglu, a 54 year old Turkish citizen from Adana had been involved in helping to bring injured passengers inside the ship to be treated. He was also shot close to the door on the bridge deck. He did not die instantly and his wife, who was also on board the ship, was with him when he died. He was shot by three bullets. One bullet entered from the top the soft tissues of the right side of the back of the head, exited from the neck and then re-entered into the thorax. Another bullet entered the left buttock and lodged in the right pelvis. The third entered the right groin and exited from the lower back. There are indications that the victim may have been in a crouching or bending position when this wound was sustained.

The location and circumstances of the shooting and death of Necdet Yildirim, a 31 year old Turkish citizen from Istanbul, remain unclear. He was shot twice in the thorax, once from the front and once from the back. The trajectory of both bullets was from top to bottom. He also received bruises consistent with plastic bullet impact

As official videographer for the U.S. government, Kurt Sonnenfeld was detailed to Ground Zero on September 11, 2001, where he spent one month filming 29 tapes: “What I saw at certain moments and in certain places … is very disturbing!” He never handed them over to the authorities and has been persecuted ever since.

In an experiment in citizen journalism, Greenwald, of RethinkAfghanistan, has trained dozens of intrepid local Afghan interns in film reporting and armed them with simple camcorders. One of these brave souls entered the area and and has released footage of interviews with the survivors.

For years, the government has denied that depleted uranium (DU), a radioactive toxic waste left over from nuclear fission and added to munitions used in the Persian Gulf and Iraq wars, poisoned Iraqi civilians and veterans.

But a little-known 1993 Defense Department document written by then-Brigadier Gen. Eric Shinseki, now the secretary for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), shows that the Pentagon was concerned about DU contamination and the agency had ordered medical testing on all personnel that were exposed to the toxic substance.

The VA, however, never conducted the medical tests, which may have deprived hundreds of thousands of veterans from receiving medical care to treat cancer and other diseases that result from exposure to DU.

The Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center recently reported that ten years of data confirm that service members tend to have higher rates of certain cancers compared to civilians, according to the Army Times. While researchers suspected that service members are diagnosed with cancer more often and at a younger age because they have guaranteed access to health care and mandatory exams, the data does not explain the disparities in diagnosis among branches of the military. For example, the rate of lung cancer among sailors is twice that of other branches, while Marines have much lower cancer rates across the board.

In PHR’s new report, Broken Laws, Broken Lives, we have for the first time medical evidence to confirm first-hand accounts of men who endured torture by US personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay. These men were never charged with any crime.

On 5/31/10, the Israeli Defense Force attacked a flotilla of humanitarian aid ships en route to Gaza, while the ship was in international waters. In this attempt to break the illegal and immoral blockade of Gaza, at least 9 were killed and dozens were injured. Much of the subsequent media spin centered on the Mavi Marmara, where some on board responded in self-defense to lethal gunfire and the illegal activity by the IDF.

Below you will find numerous eyewitness reports and media that directly contradict the account provided by the Israeli military. A UN probe is underway into the attack, and the international community must continue to apply pressure for condemnation and sanctions for this state sponsored terrorism.

Perhaps the best eyewitness account to begin with is that of Paul McGeough, twice named Australia’s journalist of the year. He writes: ‘The Israeli attack was timed for dawn prayers – when a good number of the men aboard the Mavi Marmara were praying on the aft deck of the big Turkish passenger ferry’.

The Mavi Marmara tried to alter its course so that any further attack would occur during daylight, but the Israelis persisted and boarded the ship. They used paintball guns on passengers — the ammunition mixed with glass.

In the following videos you can watch a BBC presenter going out of her way to justify the Israeli hasbara murderous narrative. She is no doubt the devil’s advocate but she fails. Sentence by sentence, Ken O’Keefe manages to teach her and us what kindness and humanity are all about.

Further claims included torture by Israeli authorities once the passengers were taken into custody and brought into the Ashdod port. “The participants received physical blows and were subjected to psychological torture,” the report alleged.

IHH described that the raid developed in a hostile manner with the objective to kill, and considered the initial fired shots by the IDF not as warnings, but as shots that were meant to kill unarmed civilians on the ship. The passengers that were killed by shots to the head, who according to the report were unarmed, further proves the objective of the IDF, claimed IHH.

The FPM has no confirmed information about the status of the other six: Iara Lee, a filmmaker from San Francisco; Kathy Sheetz, a retired nurse from Richmond, CA, and Woods Hole, MA; Ann Wright, a retired U.S. Army Colonel and a U.S. diplomat until she resigned in opposition to theIraq war; David Schermerhorn, a film producer from Deer Harbor, WA; Fatima Mohammadi, a longtime activist from Chicago; and Khalid Turaani, who was founder and executive director of the former American Muslims forJerusalem and now lives in Dubai.

In an interview with the UK’s Independent on Sunday, Al Jazeera reporter Jamal Elshayyal said passengers who rummaged through Israeli solders’ belongings during the raid found a list of names, accompanied with pictures, of people aboard the flotilla that aimed to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

New footage has emerged of the Israeli assault on a convoy of aid ships headed to Gaza in which nine activists were killed. The high-quality film was reportedly recorded by New York-based documentary maker Iara Lee aboard the Mavi Marmara, the Turkish ship that bore the brunt of the Israeli attacks. Israel attempted to confiscate all footage recorded by participants in the Gaza Freedom flotilla – including taking away mobile phones – but Lee managed to smuggle one hour of video out of the country by hiding it in her underwear, it was reported.

According to Gaza flotilla survivors speaking to Press TV, activists on board the aid convoy were robbed of an estimated 3.5 million dollars in cash and equipment by Israeli commandos. Hundreds of the campaigners have reported missing cash, laptops, phones and clothes after being released by Israel last week.

The Al Jazeera journalist describes the scenes as they unfold live, clearly stating that an activist has been shot and killed before Israeli troops board the vessel. He also says that a white flag has been raised in surrender to the Israeli army. On separate videos, messages broadcast to the passengers by loudspeaker can clearly be heard stating, “stop your resistance,” referring to the fact that the soldiers had guns.

Before the troops board the ship, the journalists report that the passengers are being pelted with tear gas and stun grenades. Booms and cracks echo in the background as the reporter states that one person has been killed.

One by one, the hundreds of witnesses aboard the vessels have been returning home to tell their stories after being stripped of any and all footage. By confiscating all non-military evidence of the incident, Israel has been able to successfully dominate the narrative, at least in the US where news of the attack had begun to dwindle by the time witnesses were released. One wonders, if Israel is conveying the whole story of what happened that night, why eliminate every single other piece of documentation? What does Israel have to hide?

Autopsy results on the nine Turkish activists killed in Monday’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship showed they had been shot a total of 30 times, many at close range…Five of those killed were shot either in the back of the head or in the back…In addition to those killed, 48 others suffered gunshot wounds and six activists were still missing, he added.

The entire world joined with Israel in 1972 when Black September radicals murdered Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich. The world was never told of the torture prisons in Israel or the truth about the 1967 War, the “land grab” and the ethnic cleansing that followed. Even still, the Munich attack was an unthinkable horror, one Israel has now duplicated with the execution slaying of peace activists and humanitarian aid workers. The Israeli paper, Hareetz has published the autopsy results.

Israel executed wounded, abused corpses and emptied automatic weapons into bodies at point blank range. These were the acts of brutal animals, not humans.

Autopsy results on the nine Turkish activists killed in Monday’s raid on a Gaza-bound aid ship showed they had been shot a total of 30 times, many at close range…Five of those killed were shot either in the back of the head or in the back…In addition to those killed, 48 others suffered gunshot wounds and six activists were still missing, he added.

“Had the Israeli government heeded to international calls and my own strong and urgent and persistent call to lift the blockade of Gaza, this would not have happened,” Ban told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

A Googler took delivery of a near-silent mini-drone from a German company, which says it hopes to sell a fleet of the spy planes for taking Google Maps photos. Hopefully without using the optional thermal camera that sees through walls.

The Pentagon’s spy unit has quietly begun to rebuild a database for tracking potential terrorist threats that was shut down after it emerged that it had been collecting information on American anti-war activists.

ACLU launches “Spyfiles” to track domestic surveillance. “The American Civil Liberties Union launched a new website Tuesday to track incidents of domestic political surveillance by the government along with a report (PDF) claiming such incidents have increased steadily since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. According to the report there have been 111 incidents of illegal domestic political surveillance since 9/11 in 33 states and the District of Columbia. The website, Spyfiles, will serve as the ACLU’s online home for all news and reports of domestic spying.”

Cleveland residents, beware: your recycling bins may be watching you. The city of Cleveland is introducing a $2.5 million Big Brother-like system next year to make sure residents are recycling. Chips embedded in recycling carts will keep track of how often residents take the carts to the curb for recycling. If a bin hasn’t been taken to the curb in a long time, city workers will go rummaging through the trash to find recyclables. And if workers find that over 10% of the trash is made up of recyclable materials, residents could face a $100 fine.